Man, see I wanted to leave it at the ";)" and the stupidest username I'd ever come up with, but you just had to provoke me like that didn't you! Okay, last fackin' time, I swear:
Anyway, I'm guessing Palpatine purposefully gave the Trade Federation a malfunctioning, half baked army to quench their greed for Naboo and other planets. In return, Palpatine probably asked for control of all their operations so that if they were sucessful, he could control the galaxy through economics. This is why he tells them to do the opposite of what would help his plan because either way Palpatine wins. This also explains why the Federation and the Separatists have the same army : they are both backed by Palpatine.
No, it was the Federation's own army; the Separatist army consisted of Trade Federation and Techno Union droids (and probably some others), as was clearly said in AOTC.
Guessing the plot background is one thing - contradicting the actual movies is even less valid.
Nah, TPM's plot is pretty much as it is - the only question is, did Palpatine order them to kill the Jedi because he counted on them to escape and bring the queen, or was there some kind of "plan A" he aimed for with that treaty, that would also lead to the same endgame?
I'm guessing it was supposed to be answered by the end of the trilogy, but since the plot got revised and changed in the process it remains a literal "plot hole". Not a contradiction, not "a five year old wrote it", just something that's unresolved.
Who is the protagonist of this movie? Qui Gon? Wise old sage archetype who wants to train Anakin for the sake of the plot.
So? Mask of Zorro, both Zorros are protagonists - it's entirely possible to tell the story from the mentor's point of view.
Obi Wan? Change his name and you'll wonder why he's there at all.
The process of him taking over as the Jedi protagonist begins somwhere 1/3rd into the duel, until then he's a sidekick.
No, the protagonist of The Phantom Menace is... PADME AMIDALA. Think about it. She drives the plot and has a clear goal :
Wow, MIND BLOWN!! This is so archetypal and obvious, anyone who hasn't fallen for Plinkett's mindless sophistry can see that.
Padme and Qui-Gon(->Obi-Wan) are both protagonists in this movie, of different aspects of the story: Padme represents the Naboo plot, and Qui-Gon guides the audience from that to the background plot, i.e. the Sith conspiracy.
He takes on the proactive role while she's still passive, and as the film progresses, his focus gradually shifts away from the "Game of Thrones" to the "Song of Ice and Fire", while she gradually assumes control over her own plight.
and tested when she votes no confidence against Chancellor Vallorum
That's not her "test", that's the "death of the mentor" equivalent - the system isn't helping her, so she has to take matters into her own hands.
By "test", you mean "passing the trial" or whatever that's called? Well, Palpatine is kinda tempting her, whispering into her ear like that... maybe it's like a reference to that trope, who knows.
and convinces Boss Nass to defeat the Trade Federation. She has a life or death situation when she helps fight, but ultimately wins and comes back wiser than before. It's clear thtough her interactions with Anakin that the world is very alien to her, but she grows up in the end. So yeah, she's the protagonist even if she's not a very good one.
Her arc is undermined by the Gungans - Naboo's attitude towards the Gungans is never "set up", so that reunification doesn't work as a pay-off; and instead of changing her pacifist attitude while gazing out the window or whatever, Jar Jar just randomly remembers that they've got an army.
Phantom Menace "rhymes" with Return of the Jedi. Clones with Empire, and A New Hope with Revenge of the Sith. Instead of doing it through theming or story, Lucas decided to do it with images.
Okay... what are those "inexplicable storytelling devices", and how are they answered by any of this?
I is mainly based on VI, that's true, but also modeled after IV, and the duel after V.
II resembles V in certain aspects of its plot structure, III resembles it in tone and arc.
II's arena battle rhymes with VI's Jabba; III's opening is based both on IV's death star segment, and VI's throne room (along with another scene), and the IV imagery towards the end is something else entirely. Mustafar duel is also modeled after Bespin. II's duel also, but probably the least in comparison. I don't see how III rhymes with IV.
Then, of course, there's a lot of naughty (yet natural) incest going on, too:
V is, in a way, closely modeled after IV - escape from Hoth resembles escape from Tattoine, battle obviously resembles the trench run, and Bespin is similar to the Death Star. VI "rhymes" with IV and V in different ways.
The openings of II and III both borrow elements from I's opening, and most AOTC scenes taking place between Act 1 and 2 come off as earlier versions of similar ROTS scenes. The split-off is similar. II's duel is inspired by the second half of I's duel, III's on its first half.
So those "rhymes" are way more numerous and criss-cross than you listed (and incorrectly so, to 1/3rd), feel free to go ahead and make sense of that salad :D
WHERE'S YOUR RING NOW!
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but it's absurd to call it poetry.
If it were structured well, it would be poetry. BTTF is poetry, and so is Cloud Atlas (haven't yet seen it LOL).
All the ways ESB is modeled after SW is poetry.
With the prequels, as far as connections between the three go, I'd say it's more or less a mess, and hence ain't.
In the context of the individual movies, one can argue - for example, there's a sense and structure to the way III references the Throne Room WITHOUT the dramatic intensity.
It really shows you how massive the problems are with the PT, when a group needs to grasp at straws to the point where reuse of visual motifs is somehow supposed to save the films.
Except it isn't "needed" - they easily pass the qualitative test the way any other film of that genre does.
Yes. Palpatine was manipulating both sides. You could even call him a bit of a phantom menace in that regard.
Huh, isn't that like, obvious to everyone in the universe?
Padme as the protagonist would have been a great idea. It's a shame it wasn't filmed that way whatsoever.
Actually, it WAS filmed that way - except, between Naboo and Coruscant, there's a huge black hole in her arc and we don't see things from her perspective (not even a valid 3rd person perspective cause her on Tattoine is completely disconnected from anything else she does).
but the only other character that fit Joseph Campbell's hero archetype was JAR JAR BINKS.
Ripping off Plinkett again? He said this in various interviews, but then retracted the statement in the EpI audio commentary.
Anakin fits that arc somewhat - not completely, but as a supporting character, that's kinda okay-ish.
Obi-Wan, as I said, takes over Qui-Gon and has his archetypal victory at the end, and Qui-Gon fits into a different archetype.
Jar Jar does hardly anything at all, in that regard - he says "we will fight", but Amidala should've had that moment, in his case it's disconnected from everything. He gets promoted General, but that doesn't count for anything, and he has that "look, we've won" moment, but that's typical for supporting sidekicks.
Mike was smart enough to retract that nonsense - so no reason for you not to :)
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Padme as the protagonist is actually an interesting concept, though this isn't particularly true since she gets less screen time than Qui-Gon and just as much as Anakin.
Lol if screentime was an indicator, then Batman wouldn't be the main character of BR.
Anakin is a supporting character - somewhat/almost qualifies as a main one next to Qui-Gon in the Tattoine chapter, but not nowhere else.
Qui-Gon is also a main character.
The movie could be edited to focus on her, but that would cut out the more fun and interesting parts of the story, resulting in something even worse.
Her bits are actually among the best stuff in the movie, so "worse", yeah don't think so.
Plus, like half of it is "fun action".
All of the palpatine stuff makes sense I guess, but it should've actually been explained clearly in the movie rather than someone putting it together fifteen years later.
Well, it's contradicted by the movies.
The ring theory is absolute bullshit, it's not a theory, it's fact. A four year old kid could figure out that the PT tries to mirror the OT! This adds nothing to the PT, and simply makes it seem sloppily written. Not poetry, not symbolism, just repetition, and useless repetition at that.
Yes, it is obvious.
Doch, it does add something to the PT, as such features usually enhance the experience.
No, it doesn't - ESB isn't sloppily written for referencing SW, and none of the things that were sloppy about Jedi, were things that were based on IV.
Useless repitition? Hardly. Some of it is, other is meaningful, but it's true that there's not much rhyme and reason BETWEEN the individual prequels.
TPM wasn't just explained to me, it was simply defended by someone who won't accept that it sucks ass.
2/3rds of it is decent to great, 1/3rd is for 10 year olds.
All the numerous structural flaws (in plotting, not pacing) within those 2/3rds don't amount to anything lesser than that.
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While Attack of the Clones is a failure as a movie on every level,
Lol no. It doesn't hold together very well, but "on every level" would also mean that the singular episodes or storylines are a failure, and Obi-Wan's storyline, certainly beginning with Kamino, is pretty much rock solid.
Maybe it fails on a logical level (the way he bullshits his way through those conversations), but that's generally one of the less important aspects.
There are two good things in this movie: Darth Maul and the score by John Williams.
All the long lists of "good things about the prequels", even on this forum, would like a word with you.
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Palpatine is an average-minded politician profitting the rest of the people in the galaxy behave as idiots.
There is such a thing as "internal logic" - so, for example, while a lot of Qui-Gon's decisions in the movie are completely hair raising if you scrutinize them, within the context of the narrative, he's savvy and competent, because the escapist universe he's in VALIDATES HIS DECISIONS.
In that sense, none of the people Palpatine manipulates are idiots, aside from Jar Jar, and he IS a genius.
And within the Biblical narrative, Jesus is the epitome of truth and wisdom, it's only outside of it that his Sermon is kinda, well, of mixed quality.
and padme was the protagonist
She is one of the two.
the movie is still shit. It's an awful work, which fails to convey the emotions it obviously tries to convey.
Which emotions does it try to convey, and how does it fail to convey those.
Anakin has a hanging poster saying "I'm cute, like me", Maul saying "I'm badass, fear me", but no one does, because everything is so underlined in the movie that causes rejection
Um, no one above 10 likes Anakin cause diabetes is a bitch; people do generally "fear" Maul, he's extremely popular to this day.
Most people, even those who hate the rest, say "but Maul was badass and that duel, too" - the only people who say like "well actually not because he had no character development" are pretentious wannabe critics in online circlejerks, that's not a valid argument really.
So underlined that it causes rejection? Whatever dude. There's nothing more "underlined" about Maul than any other cool villain in film history; Leatherface from that prequel is much more underlined, and he's still awesome.
to the premise that the viewer is, indeed, as idiotic as the characters in the screen.
Oh, I thought rejection of the characters?
Okay... so you mean, if it weren't so "underlined", people would accept the premise that they're as idiotic as the characters? I.e. suspend their disbelief / skepticism / neocortex and BECOME as idiotic?
K, whatever - I say, the charisma of the characters, excellent pacing and aesthetics and energetic drive of the storyline do that job.
Movies don't need to be explained, they success or fail in conveying an emotion.
Well, if someone claims they make no sense (in terms of plot, or other creative aspects), then they do.
The OP was a response to Plinkett, who said it made no sense / didn't have character arcs, which is obviously nonsense.
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something I've always wanted to write about but never found time to do it.
Well... fate hath picked a goodth moment. :)
Innovation, which is changing one's mindset, could be a very good value for science and economy but it's not necessarily for cinema, or drama, or music, or architecture.
Nah, man - if something is innovative, but sucks, it still deserves credit for being innovative, and discredit for being bad. The innovation could either be seen as having a potential, or as a reason why it was "innovative" in the first place, but still points for creativity.
even ESB works this way and even today Nolan is the Master of DeM IMHO (used this way). Nowadays is the other way round,
That "old paradigm" hasn't gone anywhere, people still like stories that develop and end predictably.... just not exclusively.
take for instance The Great Beauty: there are absolutely no big plot-twists
Man, this new Gandalf is even snobbier than the old one! Hey... Avengers, the new Star Wars. No need to go further than that.
Also, "surprises in a story" =/= telling a story innovatively. Lots of stories have surprising twists, but are only the 100th story to use that type of twist.
ESB works this way? ESB is the one with the surprising twist, not sure what you mean. But I, III, IV and VI all work quite predictably.
Prequels aren't just something far below the category of film, they're even bad movies in general,
That's like saying "he's not even merely subhuman, he's also kind of a dick", and no, they're good movies in general.
I and II are dragged down by like 1/3rd of shite, the rest ranges from good to great.
and VERY bad Star Wars movies given how they counterdict the great themes the OT
Contradicting the original themes = mismatched, misaimed, "not real follow-ups" =/= bad.
Revenge of the Sith has very strong themes on its own, even if they completely go against the OT.
Strangely to people from other fields than art, "this is good because no one did it before" is not an option. Things are good globally, or they're not.
If anything, art and entertainment are the areas where pure innovation has the most value, because guess what, THAT CAN BE ENTERTAINING ON ITS OWN.
Science is pretty much "proof or GTFO", and technology, well, see Robocop 2. Not sure why you claimed the opposite above:
Innovation, which is changing one's mindset, could be a very good value for science and economy
but fine.
;)
Art is all about conveying in a third person a definite emotion.
Oh man...